Agricultural bulk feed bins are well known. The bins are designed to gravity feed agricultural feed from an upper storage area to a lower outlet. The feed may include various materials of various moisture contents and consistencies. In addition to grains, the feed may contain medications, waste foods, such as cold cereal, doughnuts, cakes, breads, pastries etc. and dried distillers grains to decrease the overall cost, while modifying weight gaining attributes of the feed.
One drawback associated with the prior art practice of adding waste foods to agricultural feed is the irregular consistency and increased moisture associated with such additives, which can create flowability problems, especially within bulk feed bins. Even if only regularly shaped grain is used, fine grind, high moisture content, high ambient humidity, poor storage conditions and mold can also cause problems in consistently delivering feed material from bulk feed bins.
Fine, irregularly shaped, moist, poorly stored, old and moldy feed materials may form an “arch” or a “bridge” within the bulk feed bin, thereby preventing the feed material from exiting the bulk feed bin through the outlet. Additionally, the feed material may “rat hole,” a condition in which the feed material flows only along one or more tunnels formed in the bulk feed material. Rat holing can lead to irregularity in the density of material being delivered, a failure to deliver older feed material before newer material and an eventual no-flow condition, such as that encountered with bridging.
One way to address the problems of bridging and rat holing is to manually strike the bin with a rubber mallet. While this technique is effective, it requires the operator to be near the bin and identify the bridging or rat holing problem as soon as it occurs. It is also known in the art to attach a vibrator to the bulk feed bin. Such vibrators are typically pneumatically driven to dislodge stuck feed, and reduce bridging and rat holing. A vibrator, typically pneumatic, may be attached to a pole supporting the bulk feed bin. The vibration from the vibrator travels up the pole and into the bulk feed bin, thereby dislodging stuck feed. One drawback associated with such prior art systems is the difficulty in transmitting sufficient vibration from the support pole to the feed inside the bin.
It is also known in the art to equip bulk feed bins with circular vibrating dischargers integrated into the outlet. While such integrated systems are functional, they are expensive, must be custom designed for and integrated with the bulk feed bin, require increased maintenance and are difficult to retrofit onto irregular, worn or unusually shaped bulk feed bins.
Agitators positioned within the bulk feed bin are also known. Devices such as the Feedfas bin agitator or Sure Flo Agitator Assembly are cone-shaped devices positioned over the outlet, which rotate as feed flows out of the feed bin to keep grain from bridging. One drawback associated with such devices is the tendency of the feed to bridge or create cavities around the rotating cone-shaped agitator. Other devices, such as the JitterBall feed bin agitator, are also known. Such devices have a large ball secured to an arm. As feed flows past the ball, the ball moves, causing the attached arm to agitate the feed. While such devices may aid the flow of feed through the bin, as the feed creates cavities and bridges around these devices, their utility decreases accordingly.
It would, therefore, be desirable to provide a low-cost, low maintenance bulk feed bin vibration system, which reduced rat holing and bridging, and which may be retrofit onto existing bulk feed bins. The difficulties encountered in the prior art heretofore are substantially eliminated by the present disclosure.